The fields in the immediate neighbourhood of the city are cultivated, and not devoid of trees.

But the cheerfulness thence arising does not last long.

Very soon the trees cease, and there are no more hedge-rows.

Large flat fields, imperfectly covered with coarse rank grass, and divided by the numerous branches of streams, all more or less diked to save the land from complete inundation, succeed.
The road is a causeway raised above the level of the surrounding district; and presently a huge lofty bank is seen traversing the desolate scene for miles, and stretching away towards the shore of the neighbouring Adriatic.

This is the dike which contains the sulkily torpid but yet dangerous Montone.
Gradually, as the traveller proceeds, the scene grows worse and worse.
Soon the only kind of cultivation to be seen from the road consists of rice-grounds, looking like--what in truth they are--poisonous swamps.
Then come swamps pure and simple, too bad even to be turned into rice grounds,--or rather simply swamps impure; for a stench at most times of the year comes from them, like a warning of their pestilential nature, and their unfitness for the sojourn of man.